February 13, 2013Excerpt: Mr Obama’s decision to launch the negotiations – in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night – comes less than a week after leaders of the EU’s 27 member states approved the talks. … The main focus of a trade agreement between the US and EU would be to harmonise standards and tackle the non-tariff barriers that have frequently caused disputes across the Atlantic.”We both face a common competitive challenge and it’s China,” says Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, a US lobbying group that promotes trade liberalisation.”There’s a realisation that one way to combat that market challenge – which is not just showing up in exports and imports but also standards – is if we can reach agreement on our own [joint] standards. That would make a huge difference,” Mr Reinsch added.
